Page 91 of The Faerie Morgana
The Blackbird extended his hand, palm down, over the bowl. The gesture reminded Braithe of the day Morgana had assisted the boy Arthur to draw the great sword of prophecy from the stone. When he drew his hand back, she drew a sharp breath and clamped her hand over her lips.
She saw. The water was smooth as glass, reflective as a mirror, and she saw the dove darting and diving through the falling snow. In the background, she could just make out the outlines of trees, of a little beach, a fragment of the lake.
The Blackbird said, “I see her!”
Braithe said, softly, wonderingly, “I do, too.”
In other circumstances, she might have wept with elation. She had scried! Of course, it was with the Blackbird’s help, but just the same—she had actually scried!
But there was no time to savor this moment. Morgana would be out there, somewhere, exposed to the cold, exhausted and ill as she always was after changing her shape. “We must go, sir,” Braithe said. “Now.”
“Of course,” he said, twisting stiffly about to look at her. “But where?”
“I know that beach,” Braithe said. “It’s her favorite spot on the Isle. She has gone home. We must get to her before she freezes to death.”
Laden with Morgana’s things and wrapped in the warmest cloaks they had, the Blackbird and Braithe stepped out into the keep and approached the farmer’s gate. There was one sleepy guard there, who leaped to his feet to open the gate when he recognized the Blackbird. They hurried through, with Braithe casting glances over her shoulder in case Gwenvere spotted them. She didn’t see her. She supposed she had given up searching for Morgana’s remains and crept back to her own chamber to worry over what the morning would reveal.
A single rowboat, its hull filled with snow, lay still at the dock. There was no boatman at this hour or in this weather, but Braithe climbed in without hesitation and began scooping the snow away from the oars. The Blackbird, with some difficulty, lowered himself to the forward bench. “Can you row, Braithe? In this weather?”
“I don’t know, sir,” she said, already shipping the oars and bracing her feet. “But I will try.” She remembered the last time she had rowed a boat, how awkward and helpless she had felt, until an unseen hand propelled her. She muttered, “Lady, come again, I pray you. And hurry! Our need is pressing.”
A stanza came to her mind, as clearly as if someone had whispered it in her ear. She had never heard it before.
Size is not strength, nor is desire power.
Intent is the key to the workings of the world.
There was no time to contemplate the meaning of the stanza. She felt the surge of the little boat as her plea was answered. She lifted the oars and dipped them in the icy water, but it was not her strength that drove the boat swiftly out into the lake. It was the Lady’s doing. She felt the Blackbird’s intense gaze on her, but she didn’t look up. She concentrated on their swift passage through the falling snow and refused to believe it was impossible for them to arrive in time.
Morgana the dove knew, as she winged her way across Ilyn through the whirl of snowflakes, that it was too cold for a human being to survive for very long. Her dove’s body was warm, the avian blood tingling in her veins, the feathers fluffed to hold in the heat, but human skin had no such protection. When she landed on the little beach where she had so often gone for solitude, she found it covered in a thick coat of snow. The ice crystals clung to her claws as she waddled awkwardly up the beach.
She found a shrub with branches that drooped to the ground and waded between them to huddle near the trunk, where the snow hadn’t reached. She was exhausted, nearly out of strength, but she clung to her shape. Would Braithe come? Her handmaid had surely recognized her in that moment of her flying away from Camulod, but how could she know where she hadcome to earth? Even if she guessed, could she cross Ilyn in this snowstorm and find her here before she could hold her shape no longer?
There were no answers, and Morgana gave up wondering. She settled onto the leaf-strewn ground and concentrated on remaining a bird for as long as she was able. She would have liked to shift again, into a fox or a wolf, something warmer, but she was too tired. Changing her shape in midair as she had been forced to do had sapped her energy.
She tried not to think about time passing. When day broke over the snowy world, its light magnified by the carpet of snow, it brought no warmth. In some part of her dove’s mind, she longed to have flown to warmer climes for the winter. She was so very tired and beginning to feel weak and sick. She didn’t dare fall asleep. She might involuntarily resume her human shape, and there was no space in her tiny covert for her larger self.
She crouched where she was for as long as she dared. When she began to feel her claws becoming toes, she knew she would have to leave her little haven and take her chances in the snow. The idea of appearing at the Temple in this condition horrified her. The accusation of being fae would tarnish her reputation forever. It could be that death would be preferable.
She wiggled her way through the tangled branches, out into the cold sun that made the blanket of snow brilliant with dazzling light. Snow-tipped branches sparkled as if they were jeweled. Had she been warm inside her fox fur cloak, the sight would have delighted her.
She crouched low as the reversion began. Toes, fingers, legs,knees, arms all reappeared. She began to shiver immediately as she found herself kneeling in the snow, her bare skin reddening, her fingers and toes beginning to tingle dangerously. She wrapped her arms around her knees as tightly as she could, but her strength was nearly at an end. Indeed, she was almost tempted to give in to the cold, to the lassitude creeping over her, the drowsiness it offered.
Then she remembered.
Gwenvere.
She could not die here, now. She would not give Gwenvere the satisfaction. If she had to walk into the Temple completely naked, if she had to bear the labelfae, so be it. But she would not die.
Stiffly, she clambered to her feet. Her silver hair fell over her breast, but it brought little warmth. Her body prickled, and her feet felt numb, but she turned toward the path through the trees, to face whatever opprobrium awaited her.
When she heard her handmaid’s call, she could have wept with relief.
“Priestess! Morgana, are you there?”
Morgana turned back toward the water, making her clumsy way across the hard pebbles on feet numb with cold.
The boat was just rounding the little outcrop of rock that sheltered the beach. Morgana blinked against the glare of the light and saw two people in the boat. Braithe had to be one of them, and the other…
